Ninety jobs could be at risk if a proposal to sell off the council’s highways department goes ahead.

Bosses at Cheshire East Council (CEC) have admitted they are looking at tendering out a bigger portion of highways services by October 2011.

They say the move may lead to ‘some limited voluntary redundancies’, while remaining employees could have their jobs ‘outsourced’ to a private company.

If approved, the plans would affect road maintenance services such as repairing potholes – raising fears over the standard of service.

In an anonymous letter to councillors, a resident wrote: "This will lead to a great number of redundancies and could end up with Cheshire residents ringing an Indian call centre to request highway services as the private firm will want to cut costs and increase profits.

"As you can imagine staff are extremely concerned and are being kept in the dark on what is happening and what their futures hold."

Details of the planned transformation of highways services were outlined in a report to the cabinet highways sub committee.

Furious Tory councillor David Brickhill has accused Cheshire East of keeping members in the dark over the move.

Coun Brickhill said: "It’s important that the councillors know what the hell’s going on. I would like to stress that we are in the dark over this. We’ve got to protect public money."

And he demanded to know who was going to oversee and assign work if this goes ahead.

The union says it is ‘concerned’ about the implications for jobs.

Phil Mason, chairman of the Cheshire East Unison branch, said: "We have been briefed and it is a possibility that services could be outsourced abroad.

Unison is hoping to persuade the powers that be that the best people to deliver the services would be employees of Cheshire East Council - for the good of the public."

He said they are keeping members informed.

A spokesman for Cheshire East Council said it will retain a skilled staff base on council premises, maintaining a personal link between the authority and residents, but that some staff may transfer to the new provider under TUPE arrangements.

He said the option was part of the ongoing Total Transport Transformation Programme.

"All staff have been, and will continue to be, briefed as scope of the new arrangements develop over the coming weeks and months," he said

"CEC will also need to continue to work within the constraints of reduced funding from the Department of Transport and this may lead to some limited voluntary redundancy ahead of the new contract commencing."